Sunday, January 10, 2016

Q and A on Grammar, Usage, and Naming Conventions in Nigeria, America, and Britain

In
this week’s Q and A, I answer questions on last-name cultures, differences in
the usage of the terms “indisposed” and “ill-disposed,” and what the term “turn
of the century” means.

Question:

I
stumbled upon a seriously hot debate among students of your alma-mater, BUK,
about a simple but difficult and complicated topic. As we all know, if a person
has two names, his father's name is expected to be his surname. But the debate
is if the person has three official names. Which one should be his surname? Is the
last or the middle which will remain his father's name? Answer to this question
from you will bring an end to this debate.

Answer:

I am
not quite sure I understand your question, but I will take a stab at answering
it nonetheless. I have written about naming conventions in International
English in the past (see, for instance, my October 15, 2010 article titled “The Grammar of
Titles and Naming in International English”).

In
English naming conventions, surnames (also called family or last names) are NOT
the same thing as one’s father’s first or middle names. Typically, sons,
fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, great-great grandfathers,
etc.—including all paternal relatives— have the same surname. That’s why
surnames are also called family names. I was reading up on former President
George Bush’s family tree the other day and discovered that his ancestors,
stretching back to more than 500 years, have been bearing “Bush” as their
surname.

Surnames
help family members to easily trace their genealogies and make sense of the sometimes
labyrinthine network of familial relationships we have.

But
we don’t have a systematic surname culture in Nigeria. Most people, especially
in northern Nigeria but also in the south, bear their father’s first names as
their surnames, thereby erasing their appellative association with their
fathers—and with other members of their patrilineal family. For instance a Muhammed
Babangida gives birth to a boy whom he names Umar Faruk. Umar grows up, goes to
school, and registers his name as Umar Faruk Muhammed because teachers
typically ask “what’s your father’s name?” not “what is your family name?” His “surname”
is taken from his father’s first name thereby eclipsing his connection with his
father—and with his father’s family members who bear Babangida as their
surname.

I,
too, used to be known as Farooq Umar Adamu even though my father is Adamu
Kperogi. I used my father’s first name as my surname. I was a student in the
primary school where my father was an Arabic teacher, and you couldn’t tell
that we were related based on our names—unless you knew us. I adopted my family
name, Kperogi, which connects me to a much larger, illustrious family heritage,
only in 1998. Now, my children’s last name isn’t “Farooq”; it is Kperogi. My
children’s children’s surname will also be Kperogi. This way, they will know
that anybody anywhere in the world whose last name is Kperogi is likely related
to them either by blood or by marriage, and they can easily map their genealogy
and familial heritage.

I am
not by any stretch of the imagination making the case that this is the best
naming convention in the world. It’s the English naming convention, which just
happens to make a lot of sense to me.

But
there are equally many sensible last-name conventions that abound. For instance,
it used to be customary for northern Nigerians to bear the names of their
hometowns as their last name. Although this hometown surname convention doesn’t
make genealogical connections possible, it connects otherwise distant people
that share the same geo-cultural, and possibly familial, ancestry. This
practice was adopted from Arab/Muslim culture. For instance, the name Bukhari
(which we render as Buhari in Nigeria), is derived from Bukhara, which is the
name of a city in what is now Uzbekistan in the former USSR. The person who
popularized the name is a 9th-century author of hadith collections known as Abū
‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismā‘īl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mughīrah ibn Bardizbah
al-Ju‘fī al-Bukhārī.

While
all surname traditions are valid as long as they work for people, I personally
think bearing one’s father’s first name as one’s surname isn’t a helpful naming
custom.

Question:

I
have noticed that when women get married they change their names and publish
the name change in national dailies. For example one sees things like, “I
formerly known as Zainab Umar now wish to be known as Zainab Umar-Ismaila."
My question now is whose name is “Umar-Ismaila?" From my little knowledge
of word morphology, Umar-Ismaila should be the name of a particular person
which, in this case, belongs to nobody. I think the best way to go about it is
to make the former name compound and leave Ismaila as the family name to have
"Zainab-Umar Ismaila" I don't know if I am
right because even well-respected journalists, academics, and technocrats are
ignorant of this word formation.

Answer:

No,
they are not ignorant. You are describing what is called "double-barrelled
surnames" or "hyphenated surnames," and Nigerian women who
practice that naming tradition inherited it from our former British colonizers.
Moneyed, aristocratic, upper-class women in Britain never want to give up their
family names when they get married. So they devised naming conventions that
ensure that they don’t lose the social status that comes with their family
names even after marriage.

The
first known convention is the use of the term “née,” which is French for
“born,” to indicate the former surname (or maiden name) of a married woman. So,
to use your example, if Zainab Umar got married to Musa Ismail, she will write
her name as Mrs. Zainab Ismaila née Umar. This practice is no longer as common
as it used to be.

What
is now common is for the woman to combine her former surname (Umar) with her husband's
surname (Ismaila) and hyphenate the names to show that they are separate yet
connected. That way, she has connection both to her family and to her husband's
family. Your suggestion that married women hyphenate their first and maiden
names and leave their husband’s surname as a standalone name wouldn’t make any
sense. I know of no naming tradition in the world that countenances that.

It
is rare for American women to hyphenate their last names upon marriage; they
simply use both names, such as Zainab Umar Ismaila, without a hyphen. A good
example is Hillary Rodham Clinton, who used to be known as Hillary Rodham
before she married Bill Clinton. President Obama’s wife, too, is officially
called Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama. In her case, she still retains her
middle name.

It's
also common for American women to give up their former last names entirely and
adopt their husband's upon marriage. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for instance,
recently told the American media that she wants to be simply known as Hillary
Clinton.

What is also becoming increasingly common is
for women to never adopt their husband's surnames upon marriage, so that if
didn’t ask, you wouldn’t know from last names if a man and a woman are married.
This has been part of Muslim culture for ages. In Islam there is no expectation
that women should adopt their husband’s surnames when they get married, and
many don’t.

Question:

Is
the word “indisposed” not suitable when one is trying to say he is ill? I am
asking because I told my HOD that I was indisposed and would not be able to
attend a meeting, and his response was that I should tell him why I was
indisposed.

Answer:

That’s
funny! Well, your usage of “indisposed” is correct. The first and most widely
understood meaning of “indisposed” is to be ill. So you’re absolutely correct.
But “indisposed” can also mean not willing or inclined. The more regular word
for that, though, is “ill-disposed.” Maybe your HOD understood you as referring
to the second meaning of “indisposed” or, in fact, “ill-disposed.” I should
mention, too, that “ill-disposed” is also sometimes used to mean ill, not in
good health, but that was initially considered a usage error. Many people still
think it is.

Question:

What
does the phrase “turn of the century” mean? John Grisham (that American novelist)
used the phrase thus: “The streets were lined with turn-of-the-century
rowhouses, all of which were still inhabited...” Are the rowhouses of the
beginning of the century or of the end?

Answer:

It
can mean both the beginning and the end of the century. The turn of the century
is typically defined as 10 years before the end of a century and 10 years
following the start of a new century. But because it is such a slippery,
imprecise term, many careful writers avoid it and simply mention the years they
are referring to.

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About Me

Dr. Farooq Kperogi is a professor, journalist, newspaper columnist, author, and blogger based in Greater Atlanta, USA. He received his Ph.D. in communication from Georgia State University's Department of Communication where he taught journalism for 5 years and won the top Ph.D. student prize called the "Outstanding Academic Achievement in Graduate Studies Award." He earned his Master of Science degree in communication (with a minor in English) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and won the Outstanding Master's Student in Communication Award.

He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication (with minors in English and Political Science) from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, where he won the Nigerian Television Authority Prize for the Best Graduating Student.

Dr. Kperogi worked as a reporter and news editor, as a researcher/speech writer at the (Nigerian) President's office, and as a journalism lecturer at Kaduna Polytechnic and Ahmadu Bello University before relocating to the United States.

He was the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Review of Journalism History, a refereed academic journal. He was also Associate Director of Research at Georgia State University's Center for International Media Education (CIME).

He is currently an Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at the School of Communication and Media, Kennesaw State University, Georgia's fastest-growing and third largest university. (Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta). He also writes two weekly newspaper columns: "Notes From Atlanta" in the Abuja-based DailyTrust on Saturday (formerly Weekly Trust) and "Politics of Grammar" in the DailyTrust on Sunday (formerly Sunday Trust).

In April 2014 Dr. Kperogi was honored as the Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Louisiana's Department of Communication. His research has also won international awards, such as the 2016 Top-Rated Research Paper Award at the 17th Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, USA.